WATCH: CNN Blindsides Fauci Live By Forcing Him To Confront The Facts On Masking

On Saturday, former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Anthony Fauci walked back his previous claims on masking, finally admitting that the mass masking that took place during the COVID-19 pandemic made no difference. However, despite admitting such, he pushed for people to mask as new recommendations are being put out by federal agencies. 

The disgraced former public official appeared on CNN alongside Michael Smerconish to discuss the rising number of COVID cases occurring in America alongside the two new strands. He started by encouraging people to listen to any potential mask mandate recommendations given out by the CDC, talking about his concern that many would not follow them this time around. 

Smerconish then brought up how many Americans have no faith in masking and firmly believe that they don’t work, pointing to studies that during the pandemic, they ultimately had no positive effect on preventing the spread of COVID. 

Fauci defended the masking protocol, claiming that numerous studies show the benefits of masking. The host then brought up a specific study that was very famous by the Cochrane Library that was made public in February, claiming that the practice was entirely pointless. 

"The most rigorous and comprehensive analysis of scientific studies conducted on the efficacy of masks for reducing the spread of respiratory illnesses — including Covid-19 — was published late last month,” Smerconish read from a The New York Times article. “Its conclusions, said Tom Jefferson, the Oxford epidemiologist who is its lead author, were unambiguous. There is just no evidence that masks make any difference. Full stop."

He then questioned the former NIAID director how officials can move past such a comprehensive and damning study, prompting a deflect from Fauci, saying, “But there are other studies.” He admitted that as a whole for the country, masking had a minimal effect, but ascertained that it would protect people individually.

The statement seems odd, as if masking were to benefit and prevent the individual from spreading the disease, then in a broader study the data would also theoretically show exactly that too. The only case it wouldn’t be is if the individual studies were to cherry-pick certain people that make the dataset look more true than it is, creating a differential between the broad study and the individual study. 

It’s odd to see Fauci seemingly admit that masking has done nothing to protect America as a whole but still push that it would protect an individual. It seems so obviously contradictory that it would be expected that someone as accomplished as him would catch it but somehow the illogical statement slipped out.